


In Tribute

by biggestbaddestwolf



Category: Glee
Genre: Grief, Homophobia, M/M, Multi, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 02:50:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggestbaddestwolf/pseuds/biggestbaddestwolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Glee club tries to figure out the best way to pay tribute to Puck after his death. Sam just tries to figure out how to keep moving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Tribute

**Author's Note:**

> All Glee fic I was written somewhere during first or second.

The Glee room is eerily silent, the sort of silence that hums and buzzes. A silence compounded by the fact that they’re all there, dressed still in black.

Brittany, Santana, and Artie make up their silent corner, Brittany picking at her fingernails and Santana with her arms crossed tightly as she glares at nothing while Artie cleans his glasses on the bottom of his jacket.  
  
Finn sits behind the drumset, his eyes still red. Rachel stands near him, her mouth half open as if words were trying to find their way out.  
  
Mercedes and Kurt sit together, Kurt’s arm tightly around Mercedes’ protectively as she refuses to cry. Tina sobs silently into Mike’s shoulder.  
  
Sam and Quinn sit together at the piano bench, Quinn holding Sam’s hand so tightly that her nails dug into his knuckles. Quinn’s eyes are red and puffy, even as her face is icy-cold and stern. Sam stares at the floor between his knees and just hates.  
  
The silence is compounded by the fact that they’re almost all there. That there is a gaping, smart-ass, smooth-talking idiotic hole where Puck should be.  
  
Quinn had to force Sam to keep the suit on, and not change into black jeans and a black shirt. Sam hates dressing in a  _suit_  to honor  _Puck_ , the same Puck who might don a vest and a hat Ratpack style  _at most_  to dress up, and even then it was usually to charm the panties off a chick. Noah Puckerman didn’t do suits, and Sam feels like a fake wearing one now.  
  
A fake that’s suffocating in his tie. He lets go of- pulls away from- Quinn’s hand and starts fumbling with the knot of his tie. Even though he knows he could just loosen the tie, he’s determined to undo the knot. His fingers feel thick and clumsy as he struggles with the tie, and Quinn looks on.  
  
“Sam, do you need-” she starts.  
  
” _No_ ,” he snaps unintentionally. She doesn’t flinch, because Quinn Fabray isn’t going to flinch at his little outburst, but he still feels bad for it. He swivels on the bench, turning away from Quinn and the rest of the club as he continues to battle the neck tie. “I’ve got it.”  
  
He glances over his shoulder. Quinn’s face crumples for a brief second as their eyes meet, and he thinks that she’s going to cry again. She doesn’t, taking in a deep, shaky breath and looking down to the side.  
  
“Any word on what’s going to happen to…?” Kurt asked. “They can’t ignore  _this_ , right?”  
  
Sam doesn’t answer because all he can do is yank at the knot of his tie, giving it up and loosening it enough to hurl across the room. He wants to say something more coherent and more useful, but there’s nothing.  
  
Kurt, who had stared at Finn and Mr. Schuester with eyes wide with twisted terror and trauma when he’d heard the news. Kurt, who’d insisted that if he stayed, this never would have happened. Who knew that if he’d stayed, it would have happened to him. Sam had never gotten to be close to Kurt, never had the chance once he’d transferred to Dalton, but he couldn’t help but wonder how Kurt had the strength to even walk into the music room today.  
  
Sam wanted to ask all of them how they did it, because he’d barely made it in before collapsing in his seat, and he’s pretty sure even then he’d relied on Quinn’s strength to lead him.  
  
“They took Azimio and Karofsky,” and Mercedes’ voice is thick with venom, “away in cuffs. They’re gone.”  
  
Everyone in the room knows that’s not good enough. Everyone in the room jumps when Finn kicks over the drum set and the cymbals crash and tumble. Rachel moves forward, kneeling as if she’s going to pick up the fallen drums and cymbals, but she looks up as Finn’s shoulders shake and the tears start fresh. Rachel scoots in closer, wrapping her arms around Finn’s torso and holding on tight, her face pressed against his button-up shirt.  
  
When they’d seen Azimio being taken away by the cops, Finn had to grab Sam and hold him back. Sam remembers Finn fighting to keep Sam from going at the handcuffed bully in front of the cops, even if the entire memory is blurred by the salt of angry tears. Sam hadn’t cared, but wonders whether or not being in jail for assault wouldn’t have been a better tribute to Puck than a stupid suit jacket.  
  
Mr. Schuester walks in, Mrs. Pillsbury-Howell in tow. He glances over at the fallen drums and Finn and Rachel, and almost speaks to them directly. Instead, he shakes his head and glances at Mrs. Pillsbury.  
  
Mrs. Pillsbury clears her throat. “I just wanted to let you all know that I think you are all very brave for agreeing to perform at the school assembly tomorrow. I know that you’re all going through a very tough…” She pauses, and Sam thinks she sniffles, but from where he sits, he sees her back, so he’s not sure, “…time. We all are. But we want you to know that we’re here for you.”  
  
“What, are you gonna make us sing Kumbaya and pretend that shit makes us feel better?” Santana snaps. She rolls her eyes and looks away, pushing away the hand Artie places on her knee. Brittany’s eyes dart back and forth between Santana and Mrs. Pillsbury.  
  
Mr. Schuester frowns. “Santana-“  
  
“No, Will, it’s all right,” Mrs. Pillsbury tells him. “I know this performance isn’t going to make things better. We all know that. I didn’t mean to make you think otherwise.”  
  
Santana sucks her teeth, shaking her head vehemently while her knee bounces up and down rapidly. Sam moves slightly so he can actually look at her directly. For a moment, their eyes meet.  
  
At the hospital, when the doctor came out and told them that Puck didn’t make it, Santana cried the loudest. She collapsed into Quinn’s arms and the two of them cried hot and wet tears that still soaked their shirts when Sam hugged either of them later on. Santana howled and cursed and screamed threats that Karofsky and Azimio couldn’t, wouldn’t hear.  
  
“God, Santana, do you have to do this?” Rachel interjects, her voice still muffled by her proximity to Finn’s chest. “She’s just  _trying_.”  
  
“My boy is  _gone_ , Rachel,” Santana hisses. “Puck was my fucking  _first_. So I don’t need to hear some Guidance Counselor telling me that I was brave. That doesn’t mean shit.”  
  
“I don’t feel very brave,” Brittany offered quietly. “I just feel bad.”  
  
Brittany spent the time in the hospital sitting with Puck’s sister when Sam couldn’t sit still any longer. While Sam paced and walked outside and felt alone and angry while the night breeze was mockingly calm and cool, Brittany helped Puck’s sister make her brother a card for when he woke up.  
  
Hours of card making and nothing to show for it except crumpled up cards in a hospital trash can.  
  
“We’re all hurting,” Mr. Schuester says, and it’s one of those times where his energetic teacher cadences are missing, and that feels like just another hole in the room. “But we’re here for each other, and that’s what we can do for each other right now. Support one another.”  
  
“He’d hate this song, you do realize that, Mr. Schuester,” Quinn speaks up, her tone clipped and full of judgment. Mr. Schuester glances over at her. She meets his eyes easily. “It’s boring.”  
  
Quinn came over to Sam’s house while he got ready for the funeral. She tied his tie. They held each other as they sat on his bed. Her hands lay on her stomach, almost protectively, as they laid back on the mattress and stared at the ceiling. Tears slipped down her face when Sam kissed her forehead and told her that they’d be all right.  
  
Mr. Schuester presses his lips together. “It’s appropriate.”  
  
“That’s exactly the problem,” Quinn drawls.  
  
Before Mr. Schuester can argue the point further, Tina speaks. “Quinn’s right.” Mike rubs her arm and nods.  
  
“I don’t follow,” Mr. Schuester admits. He looks at Mrs. Pillsbury, who shrugs, chewing on her lip.  
  
Sam finally speaks. “Since when is Puck  _ever_  appropriate, Mr. Schuester?”  
  
Mr. Schuester takes a beat before replying, and he’s shaking his head. “I don’t know what you guys would rather sing instead, but-“  
  
“You don’t get it, Mr. Schue,” Sam interjects. He stands up, and Quinn places a hand on his arm. He looks down at her, a soft and sad smile settling on his face momentarily before fading away to a frown. “None of us would rather sing. We’d rather have Puck here. But if we’re going to sing, shouldn’t it have been something that he wouldn’t flat out refuse to do on stage?”  
  
“Something with some energy in it,” Kurt adds. Sam glances over and shares another smile with him. Kurt nods his way.  
  
Mercedes, who spent the time at the hospital crying and not speaking to anyone, pipes up. “Something with some damn soul.”  
  
Artie smirks sadly. “With some swagger.”  
  
The group assents, and for the first time since all of this began, Sam feels like Puck could walk into the music room at any moment. Like there’s life around him.  
  
“I’m open to suggestions, guys,” Mr. Schuester said, his arms wide. “If you don’t think my song choice is a good tribute, I’ll take the back seat on this one.”  
  
“What do you want to sing, Sam?” Finn’s first words since the hospital. Sam startles at his own name, blinking. Finn shrugs. “Dude, you and him…” He shrugs a second time. “I want to sing what you want to sing.”  
  
But Sam’s a newcomer, he wants to say. Whatever he and Puck were, Finn and Puck were friends and enemies and friends again before that. Quinn and Puck were nearly a family before Sam’s arrival. Everyone in that room had more time with him, more of a history.  
  
Sam’s got something that started while wrestling over a console controller and grew into waking up sometimes in each other’s houses and being okay with that. He’s got Puck’s failed attempts to get him to share a joint with him while watching old Saturday Morning Cartoons on DVD.  
  
He’s got a first kiss in Brittany’s bathroom while the two of them laughed at Santana trying to bang on the door because she wanted to take a shower. A first time in the back of Puck’s mom’s car because they were worried that Puck’s sister would catch them in the house and Puck would have to explain what ‘gay’ was.  
  
They’ve got shared slushies when the football team found out. Grafitti-ed slurs and hits taken.  
  
Sam’s got a boyfriend that’s buried underground that he never got the chance to tell that he loved him.  
  
And Finn wants to know what Sam wants to sing.  
  
“If Sam doesn’t have any ideas,” Rachel says, standing up and wiping her eyes. “I think I may have one.” She halfway looks as if she’s expecting the usual eyerolls, but instead, every one turns. She clears her throat. “I was thinking, last night, about all the solos he’s done for all of us.” There’s choked laughter, and Sam thinks it may be from him, but it could be Quinn or Mercedes or Santana too. “And how no one but us ever got to hear them. I think it would be nice, and appropriate, if we did a Noah medley.”  
  
Mr. Schuester raises and eyebrow. “I’m listening.”  
  
Rachel gains steam as she realizes she has the group’s attention. Sam is grateful for her taking their eyes off of him, because he can feel the sting of tears coming again. “Sweet Caroline, Lady is a Tramp, Beth. He wanted us all to put on Forget You, remember? We could each take a part of one of the songs, and-“  
  
“I’m singing Beth,” Quinn interrupts, and there’s no offer or even request in her tone. Sam lifts a hand to her hand, the one that’s resting on his arm, and squeezes.  
  
Rachel nods. “Of course. He wouldn’t want it any other way, I’m sure.” She glances over at Sam. “Do you think you and Finn could take Sweet Caroline? And Mercedes and Santana could-“  
  
The ideas start to coalesce into a plan, and Sam listens, nods. He moves from Quinn only to split off with Finn and figure out their part. And as they do, Sam very almost smiles.


End file.
